Applied Catalysis A: General 216 (2001) 85–90 Production of hydrogen from dimethyl ether V.V. Galvita, G.L. Semin, V.D. Belyaev, T.M. Yurieva, V.A. Sobyanin ∗ Boreskov Institute of Catalysis, 5 Academician Lavrentiev ave, 630090 Novosibirsk, Russia Received 8 December 2000; received in revised form 15 February 2001; accepted 15 February 2001 Abstract Catalytic reaction of steam reforming of dimethyl ether (DME) to hydrogen-rich gas was studied in a fixed-bed continuous- flow reactor at a temperature of 200–360 ◦ C under atmospheric pressure over a mechanical mixture of catalysts for DME hydration and for methanol steam reforming. It was found that the mechanical mixture of 12-tungstosilicoheteropolyacid deposited on -Al 2 O 3 (DME hydration catalyst) and copper deposited on SiO 2 (methanol steam reforming catalyst) provided a 100% DME conversion and hydrogen outlet concentration of ∼71 vol.% at 290 ◦ C and GHSV ∼1200 h −1 . © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Dimethyl ether; Steam reforming; Hydrogen 1. Introduction In recent years increasing attention has been foc- used on steam reforming of methanol to produce hydrogen-rich gas to fuel low-temperature fuel cells, including those for vehicle applications [1–4]. Meth- anol is an attractive source of hydrogen due to its ready availability, high energy density, easy storage and transportation. Similarly to methanol, dimethyl ether (DME) can be synthesized directly form syngas [5–7]. Econo- mically, DME synthesis is more profitable than met- hanol synthesis [7]. Besides, DME is relatively inert, non-corrosive, non-carcinogenic. Its physical proper- ties are similar to those of LPG and therefore, DME can be stored and handled as LPG [5]. Obviously, the demand for DME will increase rapidly and it will play ∗ Corresponding author. Fax: +7-383-2-34-32-69. E-mail address: sobyanin@catalysis.nsk.su (V.A. Sobyanin). an important role in energy transfer. Indeed, DME has been recognized recently [5–7] as a substitute diesel fuel and potential fuel for power generation and domestic use. So, the DME steam reforming (DME SR) to pro- duce hydrogen-rich gas for fuel cell feed applications seems to be promising alternative to methanol steam reforming. Literature survey revealed no references devoted to DME SR to hydrogen-rich gas. To the best of our knowledge, only patent [8] is available, which shows that copper- and zinc-containing catalysts are active in DME SR to syngas at 350–400 ◦ C. In the present work we demonstrate the feasibility of DME SR to hydrogen-rich gas in the presence of mechanical mixture of two catalysts, namely, the cat- alyst for DME hydration to methanol and the catalyst for methanol steam reforming. Unfortunately, we have no direct data on the DME hydration catalysts. To perform this reaction, we took a heteropoly acid-containing catalyst due to its high 0926-860X/01/$ – see front matter © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII:S0926-860X(01)00540-3